


Fading Away

by Br0uillon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-05-25 18:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14983334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Br0uillon/pseuds/Br0uillon
Summary: A text in the middle of the night.Coordinates.Sam knows exactly who it is from, and enlists Castiel's help to meet him there.What if Michael is sending them on a perilous wild goose chase to get them out of the way ?They both don't give a damn about the risks anymore : if it's their only shot at getting Dean back, they're willing to bargain all they can to save him.Neither Sam nor Castiel really considered the damages Michael inflicted on him.Or whether the oldest Winchester could even come back from it.All too aware that his days are numbered, Dean needs the two people he loved the most by his side as Michael is burning his light away.A deadly countdown is on, and Dean's strength is flickering.Time to right some wrongs and arm his closest kin for a grim future without him...If his time has come for good, he sure as hell won't go quietly.





	1. The 3:04 am Text

**Author's Note:**

> Edited by Jennie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One text.  
> At 3:04 am.   
> Coordinates.   
> Sam and Cas don't need much more to decide to follow the trail, hoping beyond hope it's going to lead them to the one they lost...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks after season 13's finale.

Texts in the middle of the night are never good omens. 

Sam’s phone vibrated twice on the nightstand before it woke him up. He grabbed it without being really aware of his movements. A reflex. As if he permanently lived on a strange, unsafe edge, waiting for Dean to call him at any time of the day or night. 

It led to a few disappointments, though, when all Sam had received over the past few days were, at best, possible sightings of his brother coming in from hunters around the country, and at worst, yet another one of those weird, random messages from cable companies asking whether he wanted to subscribe to HBO. If only they knew that the bunker’s outdated system was, actually, innovative enough to allow them to get about every channel on the planet free of charge…

 

This time, though, the text sent at 3:04 left little to no doubt about its nature.

“Coordinates,” Sam whispered to himself.

His mind drifted away during the brief time needed for his phone to identify the location, unable to hold on to any expectation in order to protect himself from the icy bite of another cold trail.

And yet... When a little red dot in the middle of the state popped out on his map application, a wild, vibrant hope fired all of his nerves at once.

“Dean.”

***

As the only living creature not to sleep in the bunker -- besides Arthur’s occasional drunken ramblings that could go on for a long time and usually ended up with the angel applying his fingers on Arthur’s forehead to solve the problem, albeit too temporarily for the angel’s taste -- Castiel was immediately concerned when he heard Sam looking for him in the middle of the night. 

The younger Winchester found him in the library, his usual spot to kill the night when he decided to stay in the bunker, which happened more and more often. Wandering aimlessly in the streets, with the ill-concealed objective of randomly bumping into Dean as a sign that, maybe, Chuck knew and cared, was causing more pain than hope after all. If Chuck cared, none of them had any proof of it whatsoever.

“Cas, I think I have something.”

As far as the angel was concerned, his hope for happier days was fading a little more each day, and would end with yet another look at the empty seat at their table. But somehow, there was something different in Sam’s voice. A fever. Not one caused by the flu, but rather, caused by a possibility. A chance. An odd in their favor, for once.

“I just got this…” 

Sam handed his phone, as Cas quickly read the series of numbers, at first confused. His eyes looked at the wall behind Sam, trying to gather whatever that feeling holding him so tight was about. And then it hit him.

“Dean,” he sighed.

“Dean,” Sam smiled.

“Where do the coordinates point to?”

“A small town, a couple of hours from here. There isn’t much, beside a couple hundred inhabitants, two bars closed at this hour, and get this...One motel.”

Hope. It was hope that was making Cas’ body more alert than it had been in a while, and it was hope that sent a shiver down his angelic spine. He forgot a while ago what it truly felt like, and how intoxicating it could be. 

There was a light in Sam’s eyes that Cas hadn’t seen in a long time, and this only caused the angel to be reasonably cautious. He could take disappointments and false alarms -- his emotions didn’t matter -- but he wanted to keep his closest family shielded from the pain as much as he could.

“Sam…We don’t know.”

“Don’t you get it? It’s him, Cas. I know it’s him.”

Castiel tried to shake off how contagious Sam’s newly rebuilt optimism was already. None of them could afford another disenchantment. Dean’s absence was built as a scale, an endless ladder of pain and emptiness, and each time they failed to bring him back, they pushed their own threshold a little higher. 

Even when they thought they were at the utmost of missing him, it always, eventually, grew bigger, swallowing them whole into hollowness. Lately, Cas’ expression was always somewhere a few steps away from utter despair. Tonight wasn’t any different. He was fighting off Sam’s sudden light, while Sam persisted in explaining the validity of his instinct.

“Back in the day, this is how our dad used to send us on a trail. This is something only Dean would do.”

“Or Michael.”

Sam was getting frustrated at Castiel’s rebuttal.

“It’s him, Cas. Trust me. It is.”

“Sam…There is nothing I want more. But what if it isn’t? What if it’s Michael sending us on a wild goose chase, or worse? Maybe it’s a trap. He knows we’re coming for him. He knows we won’t ever let go. He knows we'll stop at nothing to bring Dean back.”

Castiel hated to be the one to shatter Sam’s dreams, but he had no other choice. Still, he felt like a monster himself when Sam resorted to begging, tears progressively forming in his eyes.

“Cas…My brother is being used as a puppet by a psychopath, a liar, a thief, hellbent on something that could be another apocalypse. If there is so much as half a chance to help him, I’m taking it.”

“You could be killed.”

“Cas…”

“Again.”

Something darker showed up in Sam’s eyes, and for a split second, it disarmed Castiel.

“I don’t care.”

Castiel’s eyes grew larger, as a way to show his angry disapproval. “Well, I do care.”

Sam sat down next to him, his back hunched under the current, doubled-down weight he carried now that his brother was gone.

“I’m tired, man. I can’t do it without my big brother. I don’t want to, I never wanted to, and I just…I can’t, Cas. It’s beyond my strength. I try, every day I try, as hard as I can, but I’m wearing thin, thinner each day.”

Fresh off the death of Lucifer, Sam hadn’t really shown any sign of weakness for the first few days after Dean’s disappearance. Even if Castiel was questioning whether it was a facade, he didn’t really think that the cracks were getting so big Sam couldn’t handle them. 

This was answering a question he’d been asking himself for a long, long time, in ways he couldn’t fathom or accept: How far could either of them go, deprived from the other one? They both tried, and it got them nowhere. 

Deep down, Cas kept the sick certitude that there was only so much the brothers could bear on their own, and that they’d eventually throw themselves on a suicide mission. What if Sam had already passed that point? All he was seeing, right now, was a little boy pleading for something he desperately needed. 

Cas knew that he’d go anyway, even if he used a million and one arguments to prove the idea was dangerous at best. And under that curtain of reason and care, the angel knew he needed to see for himself whether this one, unexpected, insane hope was the one they’d been waiting for.

Castiel sighed, as the light chased once again the dark clouds in Sam’s eyes.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

Sam chuckled. “‘Star Wars’ is rubbing off on you, Cas.”

The angel frowned, trying to figure out whether that was a good or a bad thing.

Upon noticing his confusion, Sam explained what he meant, and Cas simply tilted his head in agreement.

Jack’s obsession with lightsabers and Jedis took on a brand new amplitude now that he found a comfort in the movies he had a hard time finding in his reality. The strange mood in the bunker was getting to him, and so was the feeling of uselessness after having fought angel bombings for weeks. 

Sam and Cas let him accompany them on their occasional hunts, but as his powers’ return was unsure, they were both too concerned about him getting hurt to really let him take any initiative. 

As helpless as Jack felt, it was frustrating. His current predicament made him feel close to Luke and Rey. Thankfully, he still considered Anakin too reckless for his taste.

Castiel shrugged, edging close to denial of how much he enjoyed watching movies with Jack, even the same ones over and over again, but he couldn't fool Sam. 

Sam knew how much fatherhood on this side of the realms had grown on Cas. Turns out, Castiel made a pretty badass dad. 

At times, it reminded Sam of his brother. The way he protected him, the way he sugarcoated the harshest of truths. The way he absorbed the pain of big, sad, cold realities. The way he went above and beyond to meet all of his needs, even if it meant depriving himself.

There was a lot of Dean in the way Castiel handled this new thing that no one had taught him about, and Sam was immensely proud of the way the angel cared for Jack. He wished Kelly could have seen it. She would have left this world peacefully if she had.

***

“Cas, I need to get a few books and my laptop. Do you mind telling Bobby or mom that we’re leaving?”

At first, Cas looked pissed. He remained as socially awkward as ever, and waking people up in the middle of the night was dangerously outside of his comfort zone. But Sam didn't really give him the option of opting out, as he rushed back to his room to pack the things he needed, leaving the angel in the middle of the corridor.

Cas sighed and took a deep breath before knocking on the door to Mary’s room. He loved Bobby, but he always found that Mary was easy to talk to. She was pretty straightforward and easy to figure out. 

She exhibited none of Dean’s exhausting efforts to detour from painful realities, and none of Sam’s emotions that could be overwhelming for him to decipher, at times. Just plain old truth, as brutal as it was. It was easy for him to navigate communicating with the boys’ mom.

He knocked a couple of times, rehearsing in his head the way the discussion would most likely go, and, as it proved inefficient, decided on a change of strategy.

“Mary?”

It took Mary a few more minutes to fully emerge, and to grab the nearest piece of clothing available to cover herself, as she opened the door just enough to worm her way out of the room and close it behind her.

“Castiel? What’s going on?”

“Sam and I have received information on Dean’s potential whereabouts.”

She placed a lock of hair behind her ear, and smiled shyly.

“That’s amazing. Are you sure?”

“No, but Sam needs to check it anyway, and I can't let him do it on his own.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Castiel could tell that she wasn't really offering, and that she sincerely hoped they wouldn't want it. It seemed strange, even to him.

“No, Mary. You need to stay and take care of Jack. He’ll probably be distressed that we’re both gone.”

“OK. How long do you think you’ll be?”

That was something Cas hadn’t considered. 

“A day, maybe two,” he guessed.

“OK. Castiel, please be careful. Nobody knows what Michael is planning.”

Castiel nodded silently. Something was off about Mary, but he couldn't quite guess what, until he noticed the pattern of the shirt she was wearing.

“Is that…Bobby’s shirt?”

Mary blushed instantly, as Cas suddenly understood.

“Is Bobby sleeping with you?”

She simply nodded. “Don't tell Sam,” she said. “He has too much on his plate right now for me to bother him with us.”

Mary kissed Cas on the cheek and went back to bed, and the angel stayed a little while in the middle of the corridor, battling the discomfort of being the guardian of a secret he never wanted in the first place. 

He wasn’t really surprised, though. As visible proof that his grasp of humanity was getting stronger and possibly more accurate than ever, he knew something was off with those two for a while. The light in Bobby’s eyes when he talked with Mary, the shy smile on the brothers’ mom’s lips when she and Bobby ended up spending time together…

There was something satisfying for Cas to realize that he was getting better at this relationship thing. The lines were always so blurry, and the unsaid as important as what was said. It was the most confusing thing for him. 

He never really forgot that his sole attempt a while ago, when he experienced humanity upfront, ended up with him being killed by a reaper. It was safe to assume that romance wasn’t his forte.

Still. How dare Mary make him the keeper of such a bombshell? He was practically certain that Sam would be happy for her anyway. Bobby -- their Bobby at least -- had always been a father figure for the boys, and it made a lot of sense that the two of them had ended up together.

Cas was so lost in his own confused thoughts about what makes a viable relationship between two people, he didn’t hear Sam calling him from the other side of the bunker, and almost hit a wall when he noticed.

Secrets. Bad for angels. Duly noted.

***

“Your mother is sleeping with Bobby.”

Sam abruptly braked, narrowly escaping causing an accident with the only other car on the road at this unholy hour. As he was getting copiously insulted by the raging driver, he looked at Cas, just as if he threw a live grenade at him.

“What the…Wow, how do you know?”

“Because she was wearing one of his shirts, and she confirmed it to me. Also, she asked me to keep this from you, so, please, do you mind looking surprised when she tells you? I don’t want to end up on the wrong side of Mary Winchester.”

Sam was visibly having a hard time grasping the angel’s revelation.

“My mother is sleeping with Bobby?”

Castiel sighed. “You always did have a talent for stating the obvious, or at least repeating it. Yes.”

Sam frowned, his eyes lost in the horizon. “Man, this is a weird night.”

“Tell me about it.”

Sam took back control of Baby, suddenly relieved that he hadn’t hit anything. If… when Dean got her back, she had to be in top shape. That’s why Sam devoted a large amount of time weekly to cleaning her, and making sure her motor wasn’t suffering any glitch. 

Actually, the time he spent in the garage taking care of Baby was among the nicest things he found himself doing lately. Ultimately, he did it for Dean. Working actively on his brother’s car was the best proof to convince himself that he’d be back, and soon.

Sam knew that the day had finally come.

And he didn’t question for one second the fact that it might be too good to be true.

Their win was overdue. Maybe Chuck had listened. Maybe not. Maybe Dean alone had kicked an archangel out of his system. Maybe he had help from resources they couldn’t access. The possibilities were vast and infinite. 

And Sam really couldn’t care less about the why or the how. All that mattered to him was the final result. Getting his brother back. The rest of the world could very well go to the dogs today. They were taking a day off. A break.

A Dean day.

The 267 miles they had to go were the longest. Even Baby was unusually capricious, eager to get back to her rightful owner. 

Oh, she’d enjoyed being driven by his brother and the angel. And she loved the sweet kid that fell asleep on her back seat within minutes, every time. 

But she belonged to one person, and one person only. It was about time she got him back.

***

Talk about a ghost town.

Not a single light along the road leading to the motel. Not one. As for the motel itself, it looked abandoned. If it wasn’t for the 24-hour reception, and the couple of lost souls that had parked their cars in front of two rooms, Cas and Sam both would have thought that it had been deserted by any civilization a long, long time ago. 

Although, they had to admit that the place was fairly neat. Just unbelievably old. There were cracks in the walls, but the doors and the windows had been cleaned very recently, and from the outside, the curtains looked OK, too.

The trumping appearances fell apart quickly, though.

It was huge. At first it looked like one unit of a couple of dozen empty rooms, spread across two stories. But there were at least 20 other similar blocks, making it the biggest motel they’d ever seen. 

There was something eerie about finding such a property in the middle of nowhere, and as far as Sam could tell, all the other blocks were partially filled. Rooms and cars, as far as he could see.

“Creepy,” he whispered to himself.

“Understatement of the year,” Cas said.

The mystery solved itself as they reached the outer limits of the motel, and noticed that on the other side of the highway there was an entire mall, and the outlines of what seemed to be an exhibition center of massive proportions. 

Sam frowned, slightly taken aback by the dual effect of the place. “Weird. I didn’t see anything like that on the app.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice,” Cas said.

It bothered Sam. Usually, as far as research went, he was pretty thorough. It bugged him that something this big could have escaped his knowledge. 

Castiel felt the urge to clarify his thought, as Sam looked pretty lost. “Maybe you were too excited to notice anything else.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Sam said.

Still, he thought, it doesn’t add up.

Cas, eyes lost in the ocean of rooms before them, was halfway between pissed and confused. “480.”

Sam stared back at the angel, thoroughly lost. “What?”

“480. Rooms. It’s a rough estimation. The number of rooms. It’s going to take us…a long time.”

Sam smiled, looking for the numbers on the doors around them. “No, it won’t.”

He parked the car along one of the blocks, as a tensed silence fell between the human and the angel. Castiel simply followed Sam, who was looking for a specific number. Was that something between them? A code he wasn’t aware of?

When Sam found the room he was looking for, Castiel smiled. Dean Winchester, man of habits .

“67.”

They both held their breath as Sam prepared to knock at the door, his fist up in the air, less than an inch away from the sturdy material painted in pale green.

He didn’t have to.

The door opened itself.

For Sam, it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders instantly.

For Castiel, it felt different. The relief was so immense, he almost thought his grace had been ripped out and he was able to access all of humanity with one sigh. The emotions were raw and intense and uncontrollable, and it was the best thing he’d experienced in his entire existence.

For Dean, the impulse was beyond uncontrollable. He grabbed both his brother and his best friend and hugged them the tightest he could, all too aware that his wavering life force wouldn’t allow him the privilege much longer.

Neither Sam nor Castiel noticed it, absorbing the happiness of the moment, but Dean was white-knuckling his embrace.

It was the only way to conceal the now painful, nearly unbearable tremors.

_Give me a minute. Give them a minute. Right now, they’re convinced everything is right in the world. I can protect them one last time, for just another minute._

_You owe it to me, you bastard._

(To be continued)


	2. The Witch, The Hunter & The Pirate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if fighting Michael with all he has wasn’t Dean’s best strategy ?   
> What if the strength required was too big to ask even for him ? 
> 
> What if Dean couldn’t win, but chose to fight anyway ? 
> 
> What if...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited by Jennie

48 hours earlier 

 

Jimmy was wrong. 

 

This didn’t feel like being chained to a comet. If it were, it would be much, much easier. 

Instead, it probably felt like being at the center of the molecular equivalent of a permanent big bang. 

The pain alone was on a level even he, Dean Winchester, the man who had died over a hundred times, never knew before. Every nerve, every joint, every inch of flesh was on fire all the time. 

Michael wasn’t benevolent with his newly found vessel, and nothing was spared to the hunter. He felt everything, and yet, wasn’t in control of anything, and it was driving him insane. 

He was locked in a dark corner of his own mind, and had known little to no relief from the moment that son of a bitch of a thief broke their deal. 

But what other choice had he had? Even if he suffered for eternity, it was worth it. Knowing that they’d ended that bastard, that he’d relieved his brother of the greatest of all burdens, that they’d done it together…It made everything almost tolerable.

During the first few days, Dean had tried to find breaches in Michael’s consciousness to take over, ever so temporarily. But the archangel’s grace prevented it on a scale that was beyond anything Dean could imagine, as if it anticipated his every move. 

Dean had to learn not to plan his escapes, and to be fully spontaneous when attempting anything to take back control of his body. Anything he’d consider even for a second would ensure he’d fail. 

And even for him, the level of strength required each and every time was like taking on an army of a million men on his own. Anyone but a Winchester would have been discouraged, forced to stay put, to keep quiet, to endure without making a sound. 

Anyone but a Winchester. 

There were small wins. Fragments of seconds of consciousness, then one full second, then five, then 10. 

When it reached a full minute, he’d had to make a really quick choice. He knew without a doubt that Sam and Cas were working hard to get him out, and that they hadn’t found anything yet proved that they were in way over their heads. 

There was nothing he wanted more than to talk, even so briefly, to his brother and his best friend, and that it would eventually dose him with the strength to get another full minute, maybe even two. 

But he didn’t pick the comforting choice. He picked the hard one, the one every fiber of his being was against, but the one that could, ultimately, provide him with a more permanent position. 

He texted Rowena. 

 

A cryptic, barely decipherable text. 

 

But she would understand. 

***

The fierce redhead was enjoying the caress of the wind in her hair, and the breathtaking view of the sunset on a California road near the sea. 

The convertible they’d rented -- because Charlie had firmly refused to steal one -- was a bit capricious at times, and there was the terrible smell of some cheap knockoff of Chanel No. 5 that made the witch briefly want to annihilate all of humanity, but she quickly calmed down, helped by the confidence and cheerfulness of her companion. 

For someone who had lived in a war zone for years, Charlie had adapted rapidly to a much more peaceful world. It reminded Rowena of the Charlie she’d known -- and, yes, had driven insane with her snarky comments -- but she had to admit, after the girl’s death, her grief was far stronger than the witch would ever admit.

She’d never told her, and didn’t have time to before she got killed, but the witch was fond of Charlie. She was like the modern version of a sorcerer, and Rowena gave her a hard time. 

The challenge was refreshing. And the girl was a redhead. This only convinced Rowena that they were on the same team. 

Yes, the witch had been a pain in everyone’s ass back then, but who could blame her, really? 

Things had changed. Now she made the right choices. She helped. She had earned Sam’s trust. It wasn’t a small task. And she lived with the discomfort of knowing who would end her, which, at the end of the day, was a chance too: As long as she walked a relatively straight road, she wouldn’t get in the crosshairs of her own angel of death. 

Not that she never considered doing something else with Sam…But that was another story. One for next time they would meet.

Maybe. 

 

Surely. 

 

Ooh, the things I would do to…

A friendly but firm squeeze on her forearm dragged her back to planet Earth. Charlie was looking at her with a sense of urgency, and probably a slight pinch of annoyance too. 

“Your phone.”

The witch rolled her eyes and grabbed her phone, somewhere between her coat pocket and one of her bags on the back seat, while Charlie was explaining to her the very point of having a phone. 

Maybe she could use a muting spell on her…Ugh, there it was again. The remorse for even considering harming her new friend. Had she known that her restored powers came with a conscience, she wasn’t sure she would have wanted them after all. 

Maybe it was just a Sam thing. Maybe knowing he’d do what Billie said he had to, eventually, was working as a natural trouble repellent. Being a good witch was against Rowena’s very nature, but she’d lie if she said she didn’t enjoy being a whole new kind of rebel. 

Hmm. A text. At least she didn’t have to talk to whoever was…

“Oh.”

Charlie, while trying to keep the damn car on the damn road, frowned. She could never get used to how danger-less the road was, half expecting angel bombings to derail their pretty little coupé at any time. 

All in all, this life on this planet was so sweet, it was hard to believe. No mud, no resistance, no angels to torture them. No executions, no fear. She wasn’t sure she’d go back even if they could open a new breach. 

And she was really, really enjoying the company of the pretty redhead beside her. Sure, Rowena’s accent was something else, and she had quite the temper, and their activities were always dangerously close to being illegal… Charlie was convinced that the constant flow of money they burnt on expensive hotels and five-star restaurants came from some grand robbery, but she’d somehow made her peace with it. 

The witch was a bottomless pit of knowledge, she had resources for almost any and every situation or problem, and she was fun. Really, really fun.

And gorgeous. Charlie tried to remember the last time she’d had any form of intimacy with a living creature… Years. Rowena would certainly make an interesting choice of partner. Why the hell not, hmm? 

But for now, Charlie was concerned. Rowena looked worried. Rowena. Worried. Those two notions were like oil and water: They couldn’t mix, and if they did, it would mean bad, bad news. 

 

“Oh?”

She wasn’t worried, Charlie realized. She was scared. Rowena looked even paler than she normally did.

“Oh.”

Charlie knew better than to ask for something clearer. She just kept driving, while her witch friend went into a disturbing trance, chanting something in a language she wasn’t sure she correctly identified. Enochian, maybe? She tried to keep her focus on the road, but what was happening on the seat next to her was beyond scary, so she decided to pull over. 

Rowena wasn’t aware of anything in her surroundings anymore, and Charlie was afraid that something would happen, and she’d be useless. Rowena had showed her a few harmless spells over the past few weeks, but nothing that would be remotely useful in a case like this… whatever this was. 

Danger and terror were deeply engraved in Charlie’s soul, turning this happiness thing into one of the least permanent feelings in the world. A scream in the street, clouds changing colors all of a sudden, the sound of an ambulance in the distance… Anything could ignite the barely asleep feeling that war had force-fed her for years. 

Rowena’s turned-up eyes, the veins of her neck becoming purple as if they were lighting up from within, and her whole body trembling -- none of it could mean anything good.

So Charlie did the only thing she could. She grabbed her newly bought computer, and tried to access the numerous online witchcraft databases she’d hacked for Rowena recently. 

For some reason, Charlie was really, really good with technology. 

***

It worked. 

Even if it took the witch a little while to establish a contact, it worked. It was worth it, after all.   
For a little while, it looked like a nuclear bomb went off inside of Dean’s mind. Purple light and sparks every-fucking-where. 

Michael got spectacularly pissed, too. 

You had it coming, you bastard. 

And then the archangel lost control for a much, much longer time. 

Dean was afraid of the consequences. He’d had time to fully analyze the behavior of his co-pilot -- if you could call driving with the owner in the trunk “co-piloting” -- and dude wasn’t exactly subtle. He was thirsty for power, and his ego was the size of Texas. 

Any mild form of aggression coming from the world was viewed as a grand offense. Dean had to admit that he was hungry for those moments, because when Michael got pissed, he stopped caring about his prisoner, and it generally was the best of times to attack. To say that the archangel had a short fuse would be the understatement of the millennium. 

Rowena’s voice was echoing inside of Dean’s brain as if it were the loudest of all sounds, enough to drive someone insane, and yet, everything was distant, unclear, blurry, as if she was shouting from far, far away. Which, technically, wasn’t wrong.

She kept on asking whether Dean was hearing her, but the physical process of answering was too difficult for him to handle. Everything was, somehow, 10 times worse on the pain level than it was before, because Michael was fighting tooth and nail. 

Dean did hear the tone of her voice become progressively tainted with worry, confirming something he had been thinking for quite some time now. 

Rowena knew far more about archangelic possessions than she’d told Sam when he called her right after what had happened in the church. But she couldn't tell him. Partly to shield him from the unbearable, ugly truth ... and, well, she was sort of concerned Sam would do what he was destined to if she told him what she knew. 

First thing she did, though, was to contact Dean. He had to be in control of his vessel for her to talk to him even briefly, and so, for weeks, Rowena was a little distracted at all times, permanently connected to Dean’s vessel. When she sensed a breach, she could share all the things she knew and those she suspected.

 

Eventually, it happened. Dean didn't have any time to be surprised or shocked, he just gobbled up the information and processed it on his own, while Michael was too busy somewhere else. It was a lot to take. And most of it was much worse than he thought.

At the end of the day, it all boiled down to a choice, and the conundrum was pure, unadulterated heartbreak. There just wasn't a good choice. 

Any which way, he was losing. 

 

Only the pace would change. 

 

But the finality of it all was exactly the same. 

So he kept on trying. He was fueled by something he himself had seen: the way Sam did it, almost 10 years ago. And even if Dean knew he didn't have the advantage his brother had, even if the demon blood’s power was alien to him, he kept on being inspired by that one awful, terrible memory that haunted him for so long afterwards. 

Now he channeled all the pain and all the rage and all the despair that went with it on a daily basis. He needed it more than he’d ever needed anything else. 

After years and years of dodging death and catastrophes of all sorts, he couldn’t accept that this was it. He was convinced that there was a loophole he, a Winchester, would eventually find and exploit. Couldn’t Billie help? Weren’t they supposed to have “work to do,” he and Sam? 

Maybe that was it. Maybe catching up with the most capricious, vindictive destiny was fulfilling Death’s prophecy? Everyone had an agenda, and no one was straightforward with them. They just let the Winchesters deal with their messes and expect them to get it all right on the first go while missing most of the information needed to make the best decision. 

This was all a cruel joke. Michael being the end of his road was the cruelest of all. 

Before the witch’s voice disappeared, all he heard was “I’m so sorry, Dean” in a Scottish accent he never thought he could appreciate so much. Anything but Michael was a relief. She was only confirming what he suspected and had been afraid of for a while.

Rowena vanished in yet another set of purple sparks, as Michael took back control, fully intending on making Dean pay for that little stunt. 

But, as it turned out, the strength Dean had been looking for all along? He found it. Just not the way he thought he would. 

It would be to keep that one, essential, crucial piece of information away from Michael at all costs. 

Even if I lose, I’ll still win. 

***

Charlie knew the witch’s trance was over when she spotted a tear falling down the redhead’s face. She was dying to ask, but she respected the space Rowena needed before recollecting what happened. 

The witch needed a little walk, and to feel the oceanic air on her face. She chased a tear with the tip of her fingers, still unable to figure out why she felt the way she felt. 

As a witch, she always was able to stuff her emotions deep down inside of a locked box in her mind. She could do whatever she wanted, however she wanted it, and most of the time, she wouldn't allow herself to feel. 

It was such an easy task, convincing the world that you are just a raging witch. It is a facade. But one she controlled. And yet…The return of her full powers destroyed that facade. That is why she couldn't hurt Sam. And that is why she suffered day in, day out about the loss of her child. 

Fergus was an idiot, he was under the influence of humanity, and honestly, he was a poor king of hell with very little leadership to handle all of those demon bastards... but he was her son, and she couldn't believe that he was gone for good. 

But now, besides grief, she tasted emotions everywhere, and things were out of control. A child in his mother’s arms? She could tear up. A puppy walking in the street? She felt the urge to pet it. 

Pet it! She was Rowena, for Chuck’s sake! The only thing puppies were good for was to provide spare pieces for elaborate spells. 

Emotions were treacherous little bitches, nasty enough to derail her plan for greatness. She hated them and loved them equally. 

Charlie had the car parked in a small forest, barely bigger than a random collection of trees, that was overlooking the sea from a big, scary cliff. Despite Charlie asking repeatedly what happened, the witch ignored her and got out of the car, eyes lost in the horizon. 

She walked for a couple of minutes before reaching the edge, and closed her eyes, embracing the violence of the salt-charged wind blowing at her face. 

She was overwhelmed, and facing a torrent of emotions she wished she could just block. She couldn't. She was, paradoxically, too powerful to suppress them anymore. 

“You were right, Fergus. Those Winchesters…They grow on you.”

Charlie tried letting Rowena have her space, but her deeply caring nature couldn't stand knowing that her friend was hurting. And she had that terrible feeling that something awful was on the verge of happening…The all too common pinch inside her stomach was the obvious proof that impending doom and major losses were brewing. 

Charlie followed the wild path in between bushes and the trees before finding the breathtaking view of the redhead against the sea. She didn't care that the witch’s hair was messy and her makeup was flaking, and she could barely hold herself against the stormy weather. 

“Do you know I have a son?”

Charlie was taken aback. No, she didn't know, or at best, she was suspecting, because anytime they would even remotely approach the subject, the fierce Scottish witch would shut down. Charlie knew something underlaid there. She just didn't know what. 

“Fergus.”

Rowena felt a raw, vastly unresolved pain in the way her throat was almost too tight to let words come out of her mouth. She was confused as to why she felt the need to share it all now, but didn't want to halt her confession. She had no doubt that it would make sense later on, once she was done lifting the weight off her thin shoulders. 

Charlie approached the witch, and stood close while not trying to hold her or even put her hand on her arm, because she knew that any form of physical contact could cause the witch to retreat to her guarded self. 

“The king of hell.”

Charlie tried her best not to appear shocked, and all she could feel anyway was Rowena’s pride, almost too strong to handle. 

“I was a horrible mother. He never stood a chance to distract me from my old ways. And yet, he became…someone. I never truly told him that I was proud or that I…loved him.”

 

“Rowena…”

The witch held a hand up to stop her.

“He died a hero. For the Winchesters. Oh, he loved his Winchesters. I thought they were his pets, but they were his friends.”

Charlie crossed her arms against her chest, trying to picture that mysterious son. Another redhead, maybe? 

She was a bit lost, stuck inside the whirlwind of new people and new faces she had to get acquainted with over the past few weeks. Leaving with Rowena was a way to allow herself to digest it all. 

Beside Sam, Dean, Mary, Bobby and Jack, and that cute angel Castiel, she had to discover how this world works and who rules it, and none of it was easy. So, for Charlie, that Fergus boy was only one more name in an ocean of names. 

Rowena took a deep breath. “He had this…maddening infatuation with Dean. I never knew the whole story, but he looked up to him. Him! The ruler of hell ! It took me a long time to understand why.” 

She laughed weakly. “I even tried to get Sam to kill him.”

Charlie was completely lost. “To kill…Dean?”

Rowena rolled her eyes. “To kill Fergus.”

Charlie whispered “oh, OK” and took a step back. The edge of the cliff was dangerously close, and the witch was known for her short fuse.

“Actually, I tried to kill them all. Dean once…Sam not so long ago. It’s a habit for me.”

Charlie was only getting more and more lost as the witch kept on unraveling memories that weren’t making much sense as a whole. 

Rowena stopped talking for a moment, losing herself in the sweet sound of the ocean battling against the edge of the cliff. 

Usually, she would have empathized with the cliff, fierce, fearless, powerful. But not anymore, and specifically not today. Today, she felt like the water…Headed only for pain and destruction.   
Charlie didn’t dare to ask for more, sensing that the witch would continue her broken confession when or if she needed it and should not be pushed. It took a couple of minutes before Rowena sighed deeply, and Charlie noticed that her hands were shaking.

“I have inflicted pain and death more than I will ever be capable of remembering. I have killed, Charlie. I have killed a lot. And I never, not once thought about what it meant. I just did it to make my way into a world that tried to make me vanish. Being a witch was a revenge on being a woman, on being a free thinker, on being myself. On being a bored and boring mother. 

“Death never meant anything for me. Until I met the Winchesters.”

She glanced at Charlie, who noticed that the witch’s eyes were shining with the remnants of the purple trance. 

“Dean Winchester is going to die of the most painful of all deaths, and there is nothing anyone can do.”

Charlie’s breath caught, and she felt an uncommon squeeze inside of her chest, right where her heart was. 

She hadn’t known Dean for a long time, but she felt a bond with the brothers and the cute angel far, far stronger than she did of a lot of people she spent a lot of time with. Now she didn’t even try throwing a spark of hope at Rowena, because, somehow, the death sentence in the witch’s mouth sounded final. 

 

“He’s tried to fight Michael the hardest I have ever felt anyone fighting. He’s trying too hard and doesn’t want to stop. Michael is consuming Dean’s light, and soon, it will all be gone.”

“Dean is disappearing…” Charlie muttered to herself, unable to register how many deaths one could die, and the sheer number of dangers this apparently safer world could hold. 

For the first time since she’d passed through the rift, Charlie felt like a stranger, threatened by this universe. 

Rowena sighed, reaching for her own dark sense of humor to keep herself as far as she could from these emotions that were eating her alive.

“Sam is going to kill me when he finds out what I know.”

“Sam wouldn’t do that…” Charlie whispered. 

 

“Oh, you wee, innocent girl. If you think Samuel won’t chase me to the other side of the Earth for this, you have another think coming.”

“But this is not your fault…”

“Try to reason with a bereaved Winchester. He and I both know he’s the one to end me.”

 

Charlie wanted to ask the witch how she knew this. But she also knew that the chances it might blow her mind for good, blood splatters and all, were all too real to be ignored. 

“Dean has three to four days left,” Rowena said. “The least I can do is to give him a chance to say goodbye.”

“You can do that?”

“That I can. It is the only thing I can do.”

There was one question Charlie was eager to ask, but it didn’t make much sense in her mind. She’d only heard about it in a conversation with Arthur a while ago and couldn’t really acknowledge how and why it was possible, but since this day was going violently off the rails already, there was no harm in making it even stranger. She was too far gone into messed-up territories already. 

“Can Dean… come back? I’ve heard about their, um…troubling relationship with death.”

Rowena smiled weakly. “Winchesters. Good at dying, suck at staying dead. Not this time. This time, there won’t be anything left of him.”

Even though she was a new acquaintance to these boys, Charlie’s heart broke at that fact, and a tear fell on her face, all the way down to the churning water.

For the first time since she’d arrived here, she missed how much easier it was to be bombarded with angel bombs. Survival was straightforward. 

Here, she understood, pain may surprise you when you least expect it. 

***

Dean ignored the level of effort it asked of the witch to get him what he required of her. 

He didn’t know that she would stay in an half-comatose state for days, that her own energy would be tapped to its absolute maximum, and that her the effect on her memory and brain faculties would linger. 

All he knew was that he never, not ever, felt such a dual sensation, both the most visceral level of pain, but the happiest relief too, all at once.

Everything was confusing. He felt himself back for the first time in weeks, truly himself. He was terrified about the archangel taking back the reins, and it took him a while to understand that he had won a longer respite. 

It took him even longer to register that it was the last one. 

 

Physically, it felt like every single cell of his body was hurting. Walking was painful, moving was even worse, talking was a torture, and even breathing was unbearable. 

For a while, he had to adapt himself to the permanence of the struggle. He knew pain. He’d been shot and stabbed so many times, pain was an old friend of his -- the sign that he was still alive, too. 

His mind was far too strong not to adapt to it, one way or another. Work your way through, buddy. This is nothing you can’t do. 

The one thing that kept him moving forward was the upcoming joy of being with Sam and Cas sometime soon. As terrifying as it felt, being given a chance to say goodbye was far, far better than anything he hoped for. 

He had known this for a while, now. At first, he thought it was just exhaustion caused by all of his relentless attempts to kick that bastard out. A level of exhaustion he’d never known. It made sense! He was fighting an archangel after all, and as far as he could remember, it took Amara to expel Lucifer out of Cas, and awful lengths to get Gadreel out of Sam. 

All this made him incredibly aware of what it took for Sam to take control of Lucifer, and he admired him for it. It had felt like a tour de force, back then, but now, Dean knew what it truly meant. 

As much as he hated it, from the moment he knew he wouldn’t come back from this, he started to keep a mental list of things Cas and Sam needed to know. A big pile of chick flick moments to, hopefully, last them a lifetime. 

He loved those, after all. Every hug, every feeling truly graced, every drop of cheesiness…He enjoyed it far more than he would ever admit. 

Little did he know he wasn’t fooling either Sam or Cas, they both knew him far too much and far too well to ignore it. But they both loved him even more not to make it public, and played their part because he needed them to. 

Cas never admitted that those moments were essential for his understanding of what is right and wrong, and Sam…Well, Sam had always been far more aware and in touch with his own emotions, good and bad. 

Dean knew it was yet another extended branch of the John Winchester tree, but as he grew older, the rejection of said feelings became harder and harder to handle. Now there was something almost soothing in not shutting them down immediately. 

So, item after item, he gathered all the unsaid things still left for him to gift to his family. 

There were a few things Jack needed to know, too. He loved that kid. Sam, and ultimately, Cas were right about him. Even if Jack’s future was uncertain after Lucifer’s last tantrum, maybe getting rid of that grace would allow him to become who he truly wanted to be, regardless of how powerful he was and how dangerous he could be. 

Sam and Cas had to get him away from the hunting life. Jack needed something good, not this crappy pile of pain and loss and worries and terror.

As Dean tried to understand what precisely Rowena had done, he had a moment of pure, absolute joy. Michael wasn’t anywhere to be seen or felt. Maybe she got him out for good? 

But then, as if he could feel an imprint inside of his shrinking soul, he knew that the damn archangel was just locked, silenced, and that it would be temporary. And Dean could also sense how the growing frustration of having been outsmarted by a witch made Michael more and more powerful by the hour, hence proving the theory that his next comeback would be the last he’d ever have to use. 

Rowena was right. There was no time to waste. Dean had always known he’d go in a bang…He’d just had another kind in mind. 

He told Rowena…Well, he told Rowena to ask Charlie to send Sam that one text. He knew Sam would know. And he knew that the witch wouldn’t risk anything -- namely, Sam’s wrath that hardly ever manifested itself outside of grief -- and that Charlie would use an untraceable phone. 

She was so much like his Charlie, it was uncanny. Computers and technology were her thing, as if, for some strange reason, every Charlie in all the multiverses were, somehow, linked by their genius and nerdiness. 

It would make sense, since Bobby was very much like theirs, too. 

 

Partial second chances.

 

Not everything was lost. 

The coordinates he gave them was the one place he knew would make it easier for him to keep Michael at bay: an old World War II radio control center, turned into a motel when the buildings were decommissioned. 

It was the best place in the whole country to mess up angelic waves. Cas had taught him about waves a while ago, for reasons Dean couldn’t even remember, but that peculiar information somehow made its way in his mind and waited for the right time to be useful. There it was. 

 

I won’t make it easy on you, you son of a bitch. 

 

Now all he had to do was to get there. 

 

It was hell. 

 

And he knew what he was talking about. 

 

Dean stole the first car he found, trying not to make it too obvious that he was the battlefield in an archangelic war, that every second would bring a new wave of suffering, and that all he wanted to do was scream his head off and give up fighting. 

The temptation of surrender was growing stronger every minute, but so was the will of seeing his family one last time. They didn't know it, but Sam and Cas carried him more than Dean was carrying himself. 

On the road, he had to stop several times to throw up. It reminded him of the Mark and how it made him the sickest he had ever been when he fought its thirst for blood. 

He would have given anything to swap this for the Mark. This was a million times worse. 

When he finally reached the motel, he gathered himself long enough to get a room, pay for it, and drive to it. He hid the car somewhere a little farther off, just so that the owner wouldn't trace it back to him should luck work against him. 

Well…It wasn’t the only reason. This way, Baby would get the parking spot in front of the room. 

His beloved car. He missed her so much. He decided he would go for a ride, just the two of them, before his ticket got punched. To say goodbye. 

The room was far nicer than most of the places he and his brother visited. He couldn't keep on standing anymore, so he lay down, hoping Cas and Sam wouldn't be long. 

He tried to relax, to deepen his breathing, to overcome the pain, but he was wearing thin already. They would likely get a little more than 24 hours, but not by much. 

He noticed the tremors in his hands. They were back. He hated them, because he could lie and pretend to Sam and Cas, but this was impossible to conceal. 

Before he heard the knock at his door, he heard the beautiful purr of the Impala somewhere in the distance. And it gave him a little more strength to fight harder and firmly handle the reins. 

He held Sam and Cas tight. He knew their joy was untainted, and he also knew he would have to break the news to them. 

So, instead of giving in to the tremors, he held his family ever tighter, white-knuckling the pain away. 

They would know soon enough. Right now, he could protect them a little longer. Just a little. It was still in his power, and no one would strip away this ultimate gift. 

His heart was breaking, his body was shutting down, his soul was fading away, yet he smiled. Illusions were his strong suit, even looking death in the eye. It wasn't truly an illusion as much as a last glimpse of the best things he could possibly get in life. 

His brothers. By blood. By choice.


End file.
